Harwich News

HARWICH – “Imagine yourself...growing up in a country with a specific language. Now, you're 10 years old and all of a sudden you're torn away from that environment, torn away from your parents, and sent to school where everybody's a stranger, speaks a different language...It's kind of tough.”
For Martin Owens, leaving home at the age of 10 was tough but necessary since it likely saved his life by helping him...

HARWICH — The success of the Harwich Cultural Center was evident Monday night when selectmen voted to increase fees for the rental of space and the only one to complain was a selectman, who thought the charge for classroom participants was too high.
Community Center Director Carolyn Carey was asked to look at the fees for the first year of the cultural center program at the former middle school on Sisson Road....

HARWICH — East Harwich property owners last week received a detailed description of the implementation process for wastewater infrastructure, if voters approve $22.5 million the project in the May annual town meeting.
With the design work well underway and an intermunicipal agreement in place with the town of Chatham to use its wastewater treatment facility to process up to 300,000 gallons of sewage per day, t...

HARWICH — The Baker-Polito Administration has awarded Dennis, Harwich, Yarmouth and Barnstable a $150,000 grant to study a regional wastewater treatment facility.
The communities have been studying a regional facility for more than a year. The Community Compact Cabinet grant was among $2 million awarded to 92 communities across the state.
There are two components to the grant, Town Administrator Christopher...

HARWICH — Town officials learned Monday that the landside Saquatucket Harbor project will receive a $1 million state Seaport Economic Council grant.
But what exactly this means for the project, which was altered and reduced in scope due to insufficient town funding, remains unclear. Questions yet to be answered include whether the state funds will be used to restore the original project approved by town meetin...

HARWICH — A lot needs to be done on the Cape to improve the retail climate for local businesses. That message was conveyed to the Senate Task Force on Strengthening Local Retail during a visit to town on Monday.
The task force came to see what steps government can take to improve the economic climate for small businesses, many of which face a small window during the summer months to show a profit. Those that d...

HARWICH — The finance committee has approved recommendations by its subcommittee studying stipends for elected town officials, include increasing the stipend for selectmen from $1,500 to $2,400 annually.
The final decision will rest with voters in the annual town meeting this spring, finance committee member Dana DeCosta, chairman of the subcommittee, said this week. It would be the first increase in the stipe...

HARWICH — Outer Cape Health Services, Inc. has applied for necessary town permits to move forward with its proposal to establish a medical clinic on the first floor of the Kennedy Building across Route 28 from Saquatucket Harbor.
OCHS was scheduled to go before the conservation commission last night for a request for determination of applicability for the project, which is located in the FEMA flood hazard zone...

HARWICH — “Small business is our bread and butter on Cape Cod,” Cape and Islands Senator Julian Cyr, D-Truro, said this week as he plans to address the needs of local businesses in forums this week and next.
Cyr and State Representative Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, will conduct a town meeting-style forum for members of the local chamber of commerce on Friday (tomorrow) between 2:30 and 4 p.m. at the Pilgrim Co...

HARWICH – When a quartet of thresher sharks died on Cape Cod Bay beaches in December, it was a sad day for shark enthusiasts, but the deaths presented a unique opportunity for the STEMinist Club at Monomoy Regional High School. After all, it’s not every day budding scientists get a firsthand view of a shark dissection.
On Jan. 11, club members watched in awe as Marianne Long, education director for the Atlanti...

HARWICH — Finance committee member Ed McManus, a former selectman and the town's representative to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, has taken out nomination papers for a seat on the board of selectmen.
“The town is heading into some important and expensive expenditures and I've been watching from the finance committee and assembly of delegates and feel like I can give a better advantage to the town...

HARWICH — Town Administrator Christopher Clark told selectmen Monday night he received an email this week from another party interested in pursuing a public/private deal to locate a restaurant at Saquatucket Harbor.
Clark was before the board seeking to lay out a process for how to move forward with such an arrangement. The town has had at least one other expression of interest from a private consortium for lo...